Our Panoramic Vistas

Ringing in 2013

2012 was not a particularly good year for us here on the trail. Our editor became gravely ill and production of the magazine was affected for most of the year. Sadly Linda made the decision to step down the beginning of December as editor in chief. We wish to thank her for the time she was able to devote to Stamper's Quest. We also lost quite a few of our designers during the year as well due to one thing or another. Our thanks and gratitude also go out to them for their patience this past year and their ability to hang in there and provide the wonderful projects we saw in 2012.

We are excited to announce that we have a new Editor in chief, our very own Cathy Peper. Cathy has been a designer with Stamper's Quest for a few years now and volunteered to step up as the new editor. We can't be more pleased or excited. She has some great ideas for the magazine and we hope you'll stick with us to watch for these exciting changes!

We also have two new designers coming on board in February. Be watching for their introductions. We can't wait to see their fresh new ideas and individual spins on the monthly features. And we will still have Regena with her wonderful, creative and exclusive Trail Maps prepared just for Stamper's Quest. (If you're new to Stamper's Quest, a Trail Map is the same thing as a card sketch.)

Cathy, Debbie Ebat, Nola Burkhardt and Lorraine Revalee will continue to bring you fresh ideas for your rubberstamping and card-making ideas. Regena will provide advanced projected here and there, and Grandpa Ken will continue to provide us with his wonderful and sometimes humorous creativity with the monthly Trail Maps. We are so blessed to have such creative people on the trail with us here at Stamper's Quest!

2013 will bring a different type of featured technique project each month along with each Artistic Guide's individual spin on that technique. It should be a fun year with lots of ideas to get your creativity flowing! We are looking at options for ways in which you can link up your projects created from our monthly techniques so we (and the rest of the world) can see how you use what we feature each month for your own cardmaking creativity! Be watching for more news about this feature.

We have plans for some new features and will still keep the popular ones, like:

Products from the Backpack - features a review of products on the market. These may be products that have been around for a while or new products just coming out. This is a feature we had several years ago and hope we can bring it back this year.

Cards to Die For - Card-making using all those dies and die-cutting machines, both electronic and manual. We hope to take the mystery out of using all the new dies coming out on the market and give you some fresh ideas to design with them.

12 Months of Christmas - We hope to spur your quest for getting your Christmas cards made early, thus eliminating the stress of last-minute "What am I going to do for Christmas cards this year?"! Besides cards, we may throw in a project or two to spur your gift-giving ideas early in the year.

Monthly Trail Maps - Our team prepares cards using Regena's Trail Maps as a beginning point in their creative quest. Maps (or sketches) are a great way to spur creativity, especially when you get stuck for ideas. Maps can be used as is, turned from 90 to 180 degrees for a different view, use some layers and not others...the possibilities are endless!

The Watering Hole - This feature will continue with weekly articles from our creative team. Sometimes the article may be a project, sometimes it may be an article about different ways to create, or it may feature a particular product an Artistic Guide likes. The fun part of the Watering Hole is that we really never know what our Artistic Guide may be writing about until she/he submits it. It's almost like opening a present on Christmas Day!

This is just a peak at what we have in store for you on the trail with Stamper's Quest for 2013! We are looking forward to growing and hopefully expanding on all things rubber stamping to bring to your creative table. We hope you will stay with us and bring a friend or two to join in as we explore all the artistic ways to use rubber stamping as a cardmaking venue.

Is there something you would like to see us feature for you? Do you have a burning question about a product, or how to do something? We'd really like to have you share your ideas and questions with us!

The 2013 features won't be starting until February to give our new editor and team time to get their feet under them. Until then, we have some new articles that will post throughout the month to give you some new ideas. And please take a hike down our trail and check out past projects and techniques. We have five years of material in our archives to play with!